Cory Folts of Oconto Falls died in a crash on Highway 41/141 on Sept. 11, 2019.(Photo: Courtesy of the Folts family)

OCONTO – The passenger of a pickup truck that swerved into the oncoming lanes of U.S. 41/141 was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison for his role in a horrific crash last fall that killed an Oconto Falls man.

Solomon, a Wichita Falls, Texas native, was described in court as transient who traveled around the country using drugs and committing crimes after his discharge from military service.

Cory Folts, 22, was on his way from work with Advanced Construction in Howard on Sept. 11 when a southbound pickup driven by Kelly Crispin, 26, went through the median and collided with Folts' northbound Volkswagen head-on near Oconto County D.

The crash happened, Judge said, because both Crispin and Solomon, her passenger, were intoxicated. Crispin is awaiting trial on related charges.

“They began to argue and got into a pushing match, or slapping match, or grabbing the wheel … whatever (and) their vehicle careened out of control and crashed in to Cory’s vehicle,” he said.

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At his sentencing for second degree reckless homicide in Oconto on May 13, 2019, Eric Solomon apologizes to family and friends of Cory Folts, who was killed in a crash on U.S. 41/141 in Oconto Couunty on Sept. 11, 2018.(Photo: Kent Tempus/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

The grief of Folt’s family was on full display in Oconto County Circuit Court, where more than two dozen family members and friends attended Solomon's sentencing.

Maddy Wilbur, Folts’ girlfriend for three years, said they had been building a life together and told Solomon he took away her future husband and father of her children.

“I hope you are locked up for a very long time, because no other family deserves to go through the pain you have caused every single one of us and that we have to sit and live with every single day,” Wilbur said.

Folts’ older sister, Felicia Brabant, said she should have been spending her birthday with her brother — rather than addressing the person responsible for his death.

“All you see in our eyes is sorrow … there’s pain that will never go away,” Brabant said. While Solomon is in prison, she said, “we’re going to carry that grief in our personal prisons ... it’s not going to go away.”

Both women expressed frustration that Solomon appeared only concerned for himself in the aftermath of the crash, but defense attorney Brent DeBord said that wasn’t the case.

While Solomon was understandably worried about himself, DeBord said, he recognizes the impact of his conduct, demonstrated by his decision not to put Folts’ family through a trial and by “the despair and agony” heard in his voice in one of his calls to his mother, as recorded by the jail phone system.

“'Mama, a boy died,'” DeBord quoted his client as saying.

DeBord noted that Solomon’s time in jail awaiting disposition of the case was the first period in years that he’s been sober.

Solomon pleaded no contest to second-degree reckless homicide under a plea agreement in which both his lawyer and prosecutors recommended he spend 7½ years in prison and 7½ years extended supervision. The maximum sentence is 15 years and 10 years, respectively.

“There’s nothing that would compensate (the family), but punishment would make him accountable for what he has done,” said Assistant District Attorney Robert Mraz.

A wrong turn before a deadly crash

Solomon and Crispin were in Oconto County by mistake. Intending to leave Green Bay and go south, they turned north instead, then turned around shortly before the crash.

Crispin told deputies that Solomon punched her in the head and grabbed the wheel after she told him she didn’t want to date anymore because they were in a “toxic relationship."

The next thing she knew, she said, they were headed toward another vehicle on the other side of the highway and the airbag inflated.

“Crispin stated she believed that Solomon’s intention was to kill her and him when he grabbed the steering wheel and jerked it,” the criminal complaint says.

Solomon and Crispin, of St. Paul, had been in a relationship for four years — the last two were spent engaged.

Solomon said he wasn’t the one who turned the vehicle off the road, DeBord said.

“He did grab the wheel in an attempt to turn it back … but that grabbing of the wheel to turn it back may have been what resulted in this accident.”

Mraz, the prosecutor, said that how the crash developed is known only to Solomon and Crispin, who has pleaded not guilty to homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle and second-degree reckless homicide. Her trial is set for September.

“I know you all hate me, and I don’t blame you,” he said, and added that he prayed for them daily while he was in jail. “I am truly sorry this happened ... I really am.”

Judge said that despite using marijuana, alcohol, methamphetamine and heroin during high school, Solomon was apparently sober during four years in the Marines, including one nine-month deployment.

After his discharge, his substance abuse “skyrocketed,” Judge said, noting “an extensive” criminal history of five convictions, two of them drug-related, while six other cases in Texas and Minnesota were dismissed. Cases in Texas and New Mexico remain pending.

Judge also said Solomon gave up parental rights to his daughter to his mother because of his drug problem. The girl’s mother already had her rights terminated.

While Solomon’s life “has been rather dim,” Judge said, Folts was “a bright light in the world.”

In 15 letters from family members, he said, Folts was described as “a great kid,” someone who “made family and friends very proud,” offered others “a great smile and hug each time” they met, and was “a strong, hardworking guy” who worked long hours to buy a home and 40 acres on which he planned to hunt with his dad and brother. He also served as a volunteer fireman.

While calls with his mother in the days after the crash indicate that Solomon tried to avoid responsibility for the crash, Judge said he accepted blame on Monday. Still, Judge said, Solomon needed “a punishment commensurate to achieve” his rehabilitation.

“A person not intoxicated, not addled with drugs, would understand that you do not, while driving a motor vehicle 65 mph south on Highway 41 … in anyway interfere with the operating of that vehicle,” Judge said.

Counts of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle, homicide by use of a vehicle with prohibited alcohol content, hit and run-involving death, first-degree recklessly endangering safety and resisting/obstructing an officer were all charges considered by Judge during sentencing and dismissed.